Behind the ho-ho-hos: Each Santa has a unique, and sometimes less-than-jolly story.

Santa Patrick Turnbull poses with 'Playboy' founder Hugh Hefner at his mansion in 2000.
This picture was taken on December 24, 2001at the Playboy Mansion Christmas Eve dinner party. Cooper and Marston (Kim and Hugh 's two boys) were still young enough to come and see Santa, and let him talk about them to all the guests. I was sent information on all the children, which I memorized and shared much to everyone's delight. On a dare from the House supervisor, I got Hugh to come sit on my lap. I have to tell you, every camera in the room came out and flashed within a five second time period. I told him it had been a long time since he had sat there, which garnered a great laugh. When asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said "Frankly Santa, I have everything I ever wanted".(Photo: Handout)

Story Highlights

Seven Santas sit down with USA TODAY to discuss what it's like to be St. Nick

Our questions were less about being naughty or nice and more about the behind-the-scenes lives of mall Santas on and off the job. We interviewed Santas stationed this holiday at top shopping centers coast-to-coast to find out what gives them North Pole credentials.

Each had a unique story, sometimes a sad story.

Just about every one of the nation's 1,500 major shopping malls has at least one Santa. The malls aren't rolling out the annual Santa Express just because elves asked them to. Kids may link Santa with gifts and snow, but malls equate him with shoppers and dough.

"The mall Santa has been one of the most tried-and-true ways of driving holiday traffic," says Jesse Tron, spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers.That, he says, is why Santas are usually hired by the mall's marketing director. Santa is good PR.

He helps to sell stuff, too. Lots of it. "I'd say 100% of the people buy something while they are here to see Santa," says Maureen Bausch, executive vice president for business development at the sprawling Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

But is Santa more than a PR tool – and a selling machine?

Seven Santas told us there's much more. While many kids come asking for stuff, others come asking for hope. Santa's job is to provide a little bit of both.

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SANTA TO THE STARS

Patrick Turnbull is Santa to the rich and famous.

That's more by accident than design. When you've been an estate gardener to Hollywood producer Norman Lear for 40 years – as Turnbull has – you're bound to rub elbows with the well-to-do.

That resulted, 14 years ago, in Turnbull showing up at the Playboy Mansion, on a lark, to try out as Santa Claus for the annual Christmas party there. He won. Next thing he knew, there was Playboy founder Hugh Hefner seated on his lap – and then a photo of that moment in Playboy magazine.

Turnbull, 64, gets $150 for the first hour at a party or shopping mall and $100 for each hour after that. Clients get what they pay for. One of his six handmade Santa outfits cost him a cool $3,500.

But he'll get it back. Over the five weeks before Christmas, he expects to earn up to $9,000 at 22 gigs. One is at a holiday charity event that actor Kevin Costner is hosting at his Carpinteria, Calif., home.

Not all the wealthy people he works with are famous. Years ago, a top executive at a Swiss bank hired Turnbull for a Christmas party at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Turnbull thought he was posing for pictures. Then the exec asked him to address the audience of big shots.

"Suddenly, I was supposed to give words of inspiration – beyond money -- to rich businesspeople," he recalls. Apparently he did well, because he's been invited back year after year to do the same.

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SPECIAL NEEDS SANTA

Imagine not being able to hear the sounds of Christmas.

No jingle bells. No laughter. No ho-ho-ho.

Val Jenkins can imagine that. Jenkins is not deaf, but the retired school employee from Spring City, Utah, is an unusual Santa Claus who learned sign language and communicates the joy of Christmas with the deaf.

"I can understand what these kids are going through," says Jenkins, 63, resident Santa at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, Calif. "These are kids who are afraid of being singled out by society."

A few years ago, a deaf girl – who was with a caregiver – was too shy to approach him, so he walked up to her. He knelt down, spoke with her briefly in sign language, then asked her something she'd never been asked before: to sing Jingle Bells with him in sign language.

The girl was enthralled. She sadly told Jenkins that her parents did not sign with her. The caregiver explained to Jenkins that they were not interested in learning sign language.

A week later, the girl returned with an uncle and jumped into Jenkins' arms. The uncle saw their special relationship and later passed that on to the parents.

Two weeks before Christmas, she showed up again – with both parents. They told Jenkins something that struck him as the best gift he could imagine: Both were learning sign language, they said, thanks to him.

'CHOCOLATE' SANTA

David Allen grew up in a world where Christmas was supposed to be white – and so was Santa.

David Allen poses with Elena Recinto in Detroit. "They call me the chocolate Santa," he says.(Photo: Marco Floyd, Party Pictures)

That's why the 57-year-old retired security employee from Detroit was taken aback five years ago when he was asked to portray Santa at a local mall. Sure, he had the big belly, but he certainly didn't have the flowing white beard and locks.

Never mind that. He's been playing Santa ever since with a fake white beard and fake white hair.

"They call me the chocolate Santa," he laughs.

He rarely gets comments about his color, he says, except from teen siblings or parents. "Kids don't see color," he says.

This is his third year as Santa at the Northland Center in Southfield, Mich. The shopping center, in an area with a large African-American population, has had black Santas for at least seven years, says Pam Lightbody, mall marketing director..

When he first started to play Santa, Allen recalls, "I would turn people's heads." Not anymore.

Long before a kid plops on his lap and hands him a wish list, Santa Neil Beck has his game plan in motion. It begins when the kid is still in line.

Neil Beck has been the Santa at Bellevue Square shopping mall in Washington for 13 years.(Photo: Scott Matsuda via Arthur and Associates)

Beck waves and makes eye contact. "If you start when they're in line, you can win them over before they get here," explains Beck, 68, a retired community college instructor in Bellevue, Wash. For 13 years, he's been Santa at the Bellevue Square shopping mall.

Small things matter. He constantly chews breath mints and wears a perfume that smells like fresh-baked cookies.

Some meetings are particularly tough.

Several years ago, a bald mother, a stage-four cancer patient, came with her four daughters. The girls all sat on his lap, and Beck prodded the mother to join them, which she finally did.

A year later, the girls returned – without their mother. She had died that October. One of the daughters told Beck that her mom so treasured that photo that she kept it on the mantel all year. "They told me that photo will always be there."

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SANTA BY APPOINTMENT

One of the harshest realities of visiting Santa Claus is those long, long lines.

One of two Santas at the Mall of America has a solution. He's Santa by appointment.

Oh, what fun it is to ride with Santa and his elves at Mall of America. This Santa won't reveal his name because he says he doesn't want to confuse kids.(Photo: Mall of America)

He's fully booked for the season. In fact, he was 90% booked before he even showed up at the mall on Nov. 12. But sometimes folks cancel, so you can always try to get on his lengthy wait list.

This Santa goes by the name Santa Sid (stands for Santa in Disguise). He won't reveal his real name because he says he doesn't want to confuse kids. The 60-year-old Santa is retired from working at an aircraft parts supply maker.

Santa Sid got in the business more than 40 years ago, as a 19-year-old, shortly after his 4-year-old brother died of leukemia. "That really got to me," says Santa Sid. He needed to find a way to make himself – and others – happy.

He takes his Santa gig very, very seriously. His beard and hair are real, and every day when he arrives at the mall, he first stops at a hair salon to get them primped and dyed. "Shoppers line up at the window taking pictures," he says.

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SUITCASE SANTA

For much of the year, this Santa lives in Santa Claus, Ind., on Rudolph Lane.

Then, come mid-November, he packs his suitcase and drives 400 miles to Charlotte, N.C., where he's employed for almost six weeks as Santa at the SouthPark Mall.

SouthPark Mall's Santa Gary (whose full name cannot be divulged) settles in for a long winter's nap.(Photo: The Noerr Programs)

Santa Gary puts in roughly 210 days annually in the role of Santa Claus, including a good chunk of it in the summer playing the Santa role for an entertainment company that requires him not to disclose his last name. "There are a lot of others who claim to be full-time Santas," says the 62-year-old. "But I see more children in one year than most Santas see in four."

At first, becoming Santa was not an expression of joy. It was something closer to desperation. About a dozen years ago, within three months he lost his job and was diagnosed with cancer.

With no job and caring little about his appearance, he started to grow a beard. "People began to tell me that I looked like Santa," he recalls. "I sort of fell into it."

It's not just kids who come to see Santa Gary. Not long ago, a 95-year-old great grandmother asked if she could sit on his lap. The moment she did, she started to cry. "What's the matter, Grandma?" he asked, thinking he'd somehow hurt her. The old woman told him she'd lived 95 years without ever sitting in Santa's lap. "But I always wanted to."

He's filled 14 books in 14 years as Santa at Tysons Galleria in McLean, Va. Assistants help, quietly asking parents waiting in line, then passing the names to Santa Ken.

He quickly inscribes a name in his book, then bellows the name to call the usually shocked child up. "When they ask how I know their name," he says, "I remind them that I'm keeping a list and checking it twice."

There are emotional moments when even Santa has no words.

One family with six kids visited Traveller each year. One of the daughters, Margaret, was in a wheelchair, and the father always lifted her onto Santa's lap.

One year the family didn't come. The next year they were back – without Margaret. One of the children told him Margaret had died the year before.

That's when Santa began to cry. Traveller and his wife, too, had lost one of their children years ago. "I told them," he recalls tearfully, "maybe they're up in heaven together."

A worker dressed as Santa Claus hugs a Zebra shark at the Sunshine International Aquarium on Dec. 11 in Tokyo. Shizuo Kambayashi, AP

Men dressed as Santa Claus use the restroom at a bar during the SantaCon event on Dec. 14 in Vancouver, British Columbia. SantaCon is held in 300 locations in 44 countries. Darryl Dyck, The Canadian Press, via AP